A/N: I'm going to say this now, instead of at the end. It's been more than four months, and I don't care if it sounds cheesy but this has been a journey, and I am sort of a changed person now. I actually feel really emotional, knowing that this is the end. Okay, enough with the maudlin speech, the point of this is firstly to say THANK YOU, ALL OF YOU, for your continuing reviews and support. Really, it's been so, so fantastic. Second, I wish to say that I'll soon be compiling a sort of extended author's notes as an additional chapter, with links to everything related to this fic - Lady Aileas's artwork, a full PDF version, the music mix when it's finished... Also a Chinese translation and English podfic, which the wonderful Quantum Rose and Kaitou Jareth, respectively, have offered to do.

There are many songs that fit this chapter, but the main one is James Horner's epic 'Titanic Suite'. It's twenty minutes long, but don't let that put you off. It is the best track on the score. The final four minutes are the most fitting for this chapter, though.

Please let me know your thoughts on this final installment, and again, thank you all so much.

— CHAPTER SEVENTEEN —

The Last Diamond Sky

April 15th, 2012

Crowley said he was busy all that week – something to do with the upcoming Olympics; Aziraphale decided he didn't want to know more – but that he would come down as soon as he could. Aziraphale told him where to meet. Said that he would wait there all night.

And so it was that at five o' clock in the morning, on the fifteenth of April, 2012, a large vintage Bentley rolled to a halt at the docks of Southampton. An elegant figure dressed all in black sprung lithely out, peered down the lamp-lit length of the promenade, then spied his friend. And his friend, sat on his jacket on the stone path, with his legs hanging over the water, rose to greet him.

"Crowley," smiled Aziraphale warmly, grasping the demon's hand. He was decades past consciously retraining from moving to embrace. "I'm so glad you could come."

Crowley grinned. "Yeah, me too, angel. It's been a while."

They sat down beneath the old-fashioned street lamp – turn of the century, in fact – and were quiet. A little way down the dock, a tall fisherman swung his line out with a soft plop.

"I trust you know what day it is?" the angel asked nonchalantly after a moment, glancing somewhat tentatively at his companion.

Crowley did know. 3D films had, of course, been his idea; he had had a whole team of specialists working on the digital re-mastering of his Titanic for the past few years in preparation for the re-release. He proudly told the angel so.

Aziraphale stared at the little waves slapping the bricks below them. There was barely a ripple out in the centre of the port, and the gibbous moon hung small and unembellished in a clear, pre-dawn sky. It was as still as it had been a hundred years ago.

"A hundred years," he murmured aloud. "It seems impossible, doesn't it?"

Crowley set both hands on the cold stone behind him, leaned back against his arms under the lamp's spotlight. Beneath the warm circle of artificial brightness, he gave the impression of basking in it. "I know. Where do the centuries go, eh?"

Aziraphale was quite suddenly engulfed by a wave of sorrow, and the kind of bone-deep tiredness that comes from fighting that sorrow for much longer than any human could possibly live through. He stared despondently across the bay. It wasn't quite the Atlantic, or even technically a sea, but it was water all the same, and that was enough.

Crowley glanced over, then nudged him playfully.

"Cheer up angel, hm? I know it's bloody depressing, but it was a long time ago."

Aziraphale turned his face away.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, the demon spoke up again. "So, er, a hundred years, then? I don't know about you, but I'll drink to that."

Aziraphale managed a small smile. "I'm afraid I didn't think to bring anything, my dear."

Crowley smiled, characteristically, like a snake. Two full, tulip-shaped glasses charged with wonderfully deep crimson materialised in his hands.

"Lucky one of us remembered, eh?"

Aziraphale accepted his. Restrained himself from downing it in one. It was an excellent wine, of course: rich and potent, intoxicating in mere scent alone, wedges of dripping red fruit roasting over an open fire. Earthy, and sweet. Powerful. He tried to remember the last time he had eaten.

"It's very good," he said eventually, after several more hits of the stuff.

"Mm," Crowley's glass was already refilling itself.

Silence again. For several minutes they sat there, intoxication creeping insidiously through their willing minds. Then, soughing across the dawn, came, of all things, humming.

Crowley looked over to Aziraphale: to Aziraphale, twirling his glass through his fingers, eyes closed, and humming. And Crowley, as he listened, felt his eyes widen, and a smile slide wonderfully across his features. He felt far more gratified than was truly called for, and when he spoke, his voice was soft.

"You saw it."

Aziraphale, eyes still closed, nodded. James Horner's love theme ceased as he spoke. "I did."

He was rewarded with a grin. "I thought you never would. Only took you fifteen years. The 3D version?"

Aziraphale very nearly laughed, but had to stop and press his aching heart. "Heavens, no," he turned to face the demon. "But it was the new release."

Crowley was nodding now, twisting so they were facing each other. "And? What did you think?"

For several moments, longer than the light question required, the angel was silent. It didn't suit him anymore, Crowley had increasingly found, this being lost in thought: once, the expression had seemed Aziraphale's default; Aziraphale at his most natural; Aziraphale at his best and happiest… but these days he would only look sad, and pained, whenever he adopted the once so characteristic expression. Wisdom, it seemed, was less rewarding than it had once been.

Finally, Aziraphale found words. He looked out across the still, dark bay, and Crowley could almost see the great ship reflected in those eyes, once so proudly docked right where they were sitting.

"It gave me peace," said the angel. Then he sighed, and all of his true age seemed to suddenly cloud his voice, and the weight of the cosmos settle across his hidden wings. "For the first time in a hundred years… I felt peace."

Crowley looked at him curiously.

Aziraphale looked back. Then he reached out, and, ignoring the demon's startled glance, took his hand in his. And was it just his imagination but did that pulse jump, in time with his own, when their hands settled so neatly into each other's?

"And for that, my dearest Crowley, for that peace… I thank you. I would like to thank you for everything."

Crowley was looking uncomfortable, but he didn't try to retract his hand. "Look, angel, if this is about the deal with the Apocalypse, then –"

"In part, perhaps, but then, not really at all," said Aziraphale, his eyes adopting a wide, distant gleam, even as they stared fixedly into Crowley's own. "Oh, if you only knew, Crowley, what we've been through!" he exclaimed suddenly, and Crowley almost jumped at the vehemence in his voice, "If only you could know what really happened on this night, a whole century ago. If you could only imagine what these past hundred years have done to me…"

Crowley, from behind his glasses, blinked. He was shuffling in unease now, staring at their held hands as though only through imagining hard enough would they be able to be released. "Er. Yeah. I'm, er, really not following you here, Aziraphale –"

"But aren't you really?" said Aziraphale, a touch of something not dissimilar to mania clouding his voice. He went on as if uninterrupted. "I just want you to know that I don't regret a moment of it. Of, you know, us. I want you to know that if I could go back in time, right back to the day we boarded that ship, then I wouldn't change a single thing, not one second."

Crowley stared. He wasn't feeling very well. He felt like… like a duck. Like he was being too inundated with water for it all to flow so easily from his back. He felt like he was being pushed under, to somewhere he didn't know or understand. He felt afraid. The déjà vu was suffocating.

"Aziraphale, please –"

And then suddenly he was being clasped by the shoulder, and stared at with such intensity, such devotion, such tenderness, that for one moment, for the strangest and most unfounded moment, Crowley felt his poor, ignorant, incomplete heart start forward, as though unable to resist an irresistible pull. A pull towards something it had long forgotten, and had for so long loved, unbeknown even to him. And suddenly, almost involuntarily, Crowley made the decision to stop fighting it. He made the decision to let himself be pulled.

And, somewhere down the dock, the tall fisherman looked up.

Aziraphale own heart was pounding with such strength now, like the downbeat of wings. His heart was a dove, every beat carrying him further from his prison, further from Earth, higher and higher. Every stroke harder, every stroke faster – a frenzy of feathers and frayed sanity, pushing him onwards as though in encouragement towards the words, words suppressed for so long, fermenting in his mouth, dreams crushed and pressed, sealed miserably within a barrel. Further suppression was barely a passing thought, existing enough only for dismissal.

"Oh Crowley, you know that I love you, don't you? You couldn't not know that. I know you couldn't forget. And if you have forgotten – if truly you have, in your deepest heart and soul, which I know with all my heart and soul that you haven't – then this is me telling you now, right now. I love you, Crowley. I love you and I never told you that enough when I could, and I could never forgive myself for not telling you in Tadfield, but I shall be damned, my dear, if I have to wait for another Apocalypse before I have that chance again." Aziraphale shook his head as though to calm himself, but his eyes were clear, and his expression calm. "Say what you will, Crowley. Or don't say what you won't. Just know that I love you. And know that, regardless of whatever happens tomorrow, or even millennia from now, I will never be sorry that I love, loved, and –" a quick gasp for breath as he tried to coherently order the words, "– have loved you."

Silence.

Crowley stared. The fisherman stared. It seemed, fading though they were, that the very stars themselves were staring.

Aziraphale went on, lashes bright, pupils dilating in his fervency. "I thank God that I love you still, Crowley. Even after everything. I thank God for you, and for every moment we had together while it lasted, and for Nineteen twelve, and for Titanic." His voice broke as his tears bled. "I thank God for everything, Crowley, but most of all… Most of all, I thank Him for love. I thank Him for love."

He finished, and there was total quiet. Total stillness. Somewhere, on the very edge of the horizon, the lightest touch of pink began to seep into the Southampton skyline. Many, many miles away, unnoticed by the whole world, a nightingale began to sing in London's Berkeley Square.

And, halfway down the dock, the fisherman knew it was time.

Crowley shuffled awkwardly where he sat. He was at a loss for words – at a loss for everything. What did the angel expect him to say to this odd outburst, anyway? He supposed he should say something generically comforting, maybe pat him on the shoulder. A hug, even.

Odd, though. His brow furrowed. The only thing he could focus on, in his mind, was a song.

Aziraphale had his head in his hands.

Crowley stared at the angel. Was he weeping? It was hard to tell. If he was then that might explain why the tune in his head was fighting so hard to be unleashed, to sound across the morning; angelic tears were such cursèd things. But no – the song, he knew, was not sin. And it was not from a twisted metaphysical principle that the urge to unleash it came from. It was not an involuntary need. It was a desire. He wanted to hum.

He swallowed, audibly. His mouth felt so terribly dry. It wasn't even the most hummable song; perhaps he was just being stupid? Perhaps he should just keep quiet and pat his angel on the shoulder and manifest more wine, and… and…

Softly, very, very softly, Crowley began to hum.

It was a strange tune. A melody that had not been heard on Earth for more than a hundred years. It was wavering, and insidious, slinky and crafty. The silence between the notes was music itself. It would flicker and undulate, spiral around for a few sets of chords, then stop, short – completely, dangerously unpredictable – before starting up again, that same swaying pattern.

That song… Violins, and Bodhrán drums, and Uileann pipes, and spoons… How did he know that?

A nameless, wordless song. Everyone had been so happy, so hopeful. They were clapping their hands. Long skirts flowed around the women; the children had bright, overtired eyes; the men were ruddy-faced and grinning from ear to ear.

How did he know that? When was this? What was this?

Slowly, Aziraphale lifted his head from his hands.

Crowley, meanwhile, continued to hum, more to himself now, each note revealing more and more as it permeated through his mind, igniting everything it touched, weaving it through the air in a thousand colours, elucidating every shadow and every secret, every unlamented sorrow…

Memories. That's what they were. As though from a dream, only not a dream, not at all, but a forgotten reality. They were memories, and they were twirling through his mind in a slow, graceful dance, orbiting one another and shining like stars. It was the song, the music, pulling him blindly by the hand towards a blurred light that was growing ever brighter.

He saw Victorian grandeur, and calm seas, and dazzling diamond skies. He saw a dancefloor lit by bare bulbs, and a violin on his arm, and a whole world of music and emotions condensed for the power of two worn old bows to convey to a party of delighted, uneducated mortals, in patched-up clothes and sleeves out at their elbows. He saw a dawn, and slippery bed sheets, and dimmed resplendent afternoon light, and feathers touching the elegantly embellished ceiling – and a face... A face with soft curves, and full lips, and a dimpled smile; a face with eyes bluer than that ocean behind endearing little glasses, and crowned by a wicker of golden curls that shone like ethereal flame...

And they had soared, soared together, in perfect harmony. They were a symphony of two, joined as one, two halves of a whole that ached with loss on separation. They had been one, and they had been whole… and they had been separated by a tragedy – a tragedy within a tragedy, a death without death, and now a hundred years had gone by…

Aziraphale was staring at him. He was staring at Crowley as though for the first time in more than a century.

Which was fair enough.

Crowley, staring back at the angel with eyes as wide as saucers, trailed off. Southampton itself seemed to ache in the absence of his song. He could barely breathe.

"Aziraphale?" he hardly dared to whisper the name.

Aziraphale opened that soft, rosy mouth of his ever so slightly to inhale. His whole body was perfectly still, his eyes wide; he was a boy with a butterfly net holding the rarest of all on his finger. Watching him, Crowley had the fleeting thought that perhaps this was how he appeared to the angel himself: too frightened to move, terrified for this not to be real; terrified to be woken from this impossible dream.

Aziraphale nodded, barely perceptively, and gentle, warm light flooded into the demon's deprived eyes as his sunglasses dissolved – and with it, yet another barrier within his mind. The barrier before another dawn, so long ago. A dawn that had welcomed an altogether different kind of revelation… or was it the very same, only revealing itself once more?

He was suddenly very aware of how the streetlamp behind his angel's head – redundant now in the pinkish glow of the coming sun – seemed to light him from the inside. Sort of in the same way in which a flare had done on this same night, a whole, impossible century ago.

…And yet more barriers were burned…

Aziraphale whispered, through a smile that trembled, in a voice as lovely and enchanting as daybreak, as soft as a breeze, "My dear."

It wasn't quite a question, but there was an imploring note to it. Inquiring.

They had been here before.

Crowley tried to form words on his lips, and couldn't. There were no words on Earth he could use. Maybe none in Heaven.

A hand came up – his – and touched that face with fingertips that quivered in their disbelief. That skin, so smooth, so radiant, so sacred and godly and familiar, so cherished... and his to touch. His to touch, again, after an entire century spent together, yet also so apart, so painfully apart. It hadn't really been a century, had it? A whole century? A whole century, and the angel had endured it all alone…

Aziraphale brought up his own hand to touch his. Crowley could feel a smile beneath his touch, a smile as tentative yet serene as the one they had shared on that first morning, on the bow after the Irish party, when they had both known to reach in at that moment and change their lives forever. And they had changed their lives forever. Crowley knew then. Crowley could see enough to know with all his heart.

Their eyes were locked to each other's. Their chests rose and then fell as they breathed in and out, slowly, calmly.

Crowley's lips parted. He knew his line. By God – literally – he knew his line. And he had waited long enough to say it.

"My angel."

They were leaning in. They were closing the space between them.

And then they were clasped to each other in an embrace so tight that all the breath escaped their bodies, and they were kissing.

It was like falling – no, like Falling, like being blinded by momentum, and deafened by momentousness, and spiralling down and down, deeper into Chaos – it was like Falling without the pain or regret, like Falling up perhaps, or, if neither Heaven nor Hell would take them, then they would Fall sideways instead, and make their own world for themselves.

The demon's cold dry parted lips crushed the smooth ripe curve of the angel's against his, his long tongue traversing that hot, sweet mouth as Aziraphale's own danced and danced attendance around it. It was as though nothing had changed – like they would look up and see glittering chandeliers or elegantly embellished ceilings or a hazy grey dawn that unfolded across the silent Atlantic. Their hands were all over each other, Crowley running his fingers through that hair – that soft, soft, mass of fragranced hair, the cassia and the honeysuckle and the jasmine, the Eden – and Aziraphale touching that face – that face, so smooth, so angular, so familiar and cherished and perfectly sculpted – insatiable, ineffable, incredulous, the world spinning around so vehemently that if they let go of their hold they might just be sent hurtling into the cosmos to keep their watchful stars company. It was as though the last century had never passed. They were together again. They were always going to be together. Nothing could keep them apart – neither Heaven nor Hell, the Metatron nor Beëlzebub; Asmodeus, the Lethe, the metaphysics behind Good and Evil; neither God nor Lucifer. A hundred years had gone by and here they were, holding each other on the docks of Southampton, where it had all begun.

They could feel their tears running together down their joined cheeks together as one flow, Crowley's prickling soothed by the balm of the angel's sweet pure nectar. They kissed and they kissed and they clung to each other as one; they wove their very souls into their embrace, flowing through the other, pure and pure united – finally, finally united – as one. They were one. Finally, after all this time broken and apart and incomplete, their halves were together. Finally, they were whole. Pulling back to stare into each other's eyes, sharing their disbelief, their devotion, their destined love, their everything, they knew this. This was destined.

It was, in fact, thought God, smiling to Himself, ineffable.

And it was theirs. He and Aziraphale. He and Crowley. They belonged completely to each other. They belonged together.

They drew apart. Repositioned themselves enough to lay their heads down on the other's shoulder. Their arms sealed them together.

Behind them, across the glittering waters, the glowing crest of a white sun was beginning to rise, illuminating the erubescent pink sky with shots of peach and apricot. It was warm, and clear, and breathtaking, so different from the foggy and uncertain blue-grey of that first dawn, more than a century ago… and yet, maybe not so different at all.

The angel and the demon stayed that way, holding each other, their very souls in the hands of the other. The sun continued to rise, as slowly and steadily as a pocket of air trapped within a syrupy liquid. They could have stayed like that for millennia to come. They could have stayed the millennia to come.

Clouds were rolling in, dark grey and heavy. They were moving faster than the wind.

Beneath the embracing lovers, the ground started to quake ever so slightly. Crowley and Aziraphale pulled apart, slowly and reluctantly.

Aziraphale sighed in resignation as lightening flashed far in the distance. "I suppose it was to be expected, really," he said, softly.

Crowley met his eyes and gave him a wry smile. "I guess we've really pissed off the big boys this time."

Aziraphale returned the smile. "I suppose we have."

They pulled themselves into a standing position, not letting go of their hands – never letting go of their hands. In front of them, beneath a rapidly-louring sky, the once-calm bay was beginning to spiral into a languorous whirlpool.

"Who d'you reckon it'll be?" asked Crowley nonchalantly, gazing impassively into the eye of the whorl.

Aziraphale didn't pretend to misunderstand. He shrugged. "Most likely the Metatron for me. After all, it was him I specifically disobeyed. Perhaps Beëlzebub for you?"

"I dunno," said Crowley, as the last spot of peach in the sky was eclipsed. "I wouldn't put it past the old Prince of Darkness himself to pay us a visit, since if you think about it Beëlzebub failed the first time, didn't he?"

Thunder rumbled high above them, deep within its thick mantle of slate-black, fighting to break through.

"I suppose," murmured Aziraphale. Their hands tightened their hold.

More thunder came, louder this time, already barely trailing behind its lightning counterpart.

"Says something about the mercies of Heaven and Hell, doesn't it?" said Crowley musingly after a moment, as a tumbleweed of corrugated iron zipped past. "I exist in blissful bloody ignorance for a hundred years and you go through what you did, watching me swan around oblivious." He shot his lover a quick look. "I really am sorry about that. It does rather explain your manic hug in World War II, though, and why you've seemed even more gay than usual."

Aziraphale smiled. He smiled so hard his body felt incapable of fear. "You have nothing to apologise for at all, my dear, and you know that."

Crowley beamed. "Oh, good! I was only being polite. Figured a redundant apology was the clichéd thing to say."

His angel chuckled. Then –

"Do you still want to know what my name means, by the way?"

Crowley glanced sharply at him in surprise. He wasn't sure he had heard right.

"How do you know about that?"

Aziraphale turned to face him. He gave the demon a small, sad smile. "I never left you that night, my dear," he said. "Not really."

Crowley stared at him. "You mean, you weren't really –"

"Oh no, I was good and dead," the angel informed him cheerfully, then raised his voice over another peal of thunder that seemed to shake the whole world. "I just mean that I... sort of... hung around for a little while after. Until you were rescued."

Lightning tore the sky – as dark as night now – momentarily in two, holding the world in total, unnaturally shadowless illumination for one brief half-second. The thunder that followed this time was ear-shattering, uninhibited by miles of cloud cover now, and the air crackled with static, but the angel and the demon did not flinch. Aziraphale waited for relative quiet to assume before he spoke again.

"It comes from Raphael," he continued casually, staring out across the turbulent water. "You know, the Healer?"

In front of them, little yachts and dinghies began to orbit the eye of the whirlpool, caught like toy boats around the plug of a bathtub. Crowley didn't notice.

Aziraphale turned his head to face him once more. "I am Aziraphale..." His glance fell down, suddenly self-conscious. "The Redeemer."

Crowley cocked his head curiously.

"You imagine I'll be Redeemed for this, Aziraphale?"

Aziraphale met his gaze. He smiled sadly again, then shrugged slightly, as though accepting and then dismissing his regrets. "I wouldn't be surprised if I am made to Fall."

Crowley squeezed his hand.

"I think it's beautiful, ang'," he hissed, as the streetlamp above them – and all the others along the seafront – flickered. "Hell of a lot cooler than Star of God. It really suits you."

Aziraphale beamed. "Thank you, my dear. That means a lot to me."

Crowley grinned, then leaned in to briefly peck him on the cheek. Aziraphale turned his head so that their lips met once more, and for a few precious seconds they kissed again, for the last time.

They pulled back, their eyes lingering. In front of them, the black sky looked almost to be unfolding itself, as though heralding an arrival.

Crowley, facing the sea, squeezed Aziraphale's hand. Then he swallowed, and when he spoke his voice was light and casual.

"Love you, angel."

He felt pressure in his palm as Aziraphale squeezed back. Out of the corner of his eye Crowley saw the angel's smiling lips as he whispered his reply.

"Love you too, my dear."

Across the horizon, their own personal Apocalypse continued to temper. Lightning was now a permanent feature, brilliant white and brilliant orange, forking in every direction, and from every direction. The thunder was a constant throb in their ears, the wind whipping their hair and clothes about them. The churning clouds looked thick enough to cut with a knife.

Behind them, as the sky continued to split, and the sea continued to boil, every light in Southampton went out.

And Crowley and Aziraphale, one angel and one demon, two lovers against all of Heaven and Hell, stood their ground, held their hands, spread their wings, and quietly awaited their destiny.